How to search on eBay

[Marco Bernardini]

Not always it is easy to browse eBay for good deals, but there are helpful tricks.
The most important is how to remove irrelevant results.
Suppose you want a Kurt vise (or vice… with a Kurt you'll become addict! :biggrin.
If you make a worldwide search you can't limit yourself to the word "vise", because perhaps there is somewhere in Germany a "kurt schraubstock" for a good price.
A straight search for the word Kurt gives you (in the moment I'm writing) 109,037 results. Here is why people buys vises branded Glacern or Gerardi :biggrin:
The minus (-) operator allows you to remove results, so if you search for kurt -cobain -busch the number of results goes down to 85,559: not bad, but still a lot.
If you browse the first results sorting by "price+shipping: lower first" you see some other associated terms are frequent: in the case of Kurt, you'll find Russell, Tucholsky, Schumacher, Hamrin, Vonnegut, Abbott, Warner, Weill, Schwitters, all guys named Kurt who have a little to do with a vise.
Alas, eBay suppressed the * search, which allowed you to search for part of words (car* matched car, cars, carpenter, cardinal, etc.), so now searches require far more terms.
The search for kurt -cobain -busch -russell -tucholsky -schumacher -hamrin -vonnegut -abbott -warner -weill -schwitters reduces the range to "just" 68,118 results.
There is also a common Kurt Angle, but the term Angle is better to be preserved, since someone can have used it to describe a vise.
Other common terms I found associated with Kurt are "schauspieler" (German for "actor"), "autogramm" (German for autograph), "panini" (Italian brand of stickers cards), "timbre" (French for "post stamp"), "postkarte" (German for "post card"): other useless results removed.
I continued to remove results, and now my search is kurt -cobain -busch -russell -tucholsky -schumacher -hamrin -vonnegut -abbott -warner -weill -schwitters -schauspieler -autogramm -eigl -jara -bauer -waldheim -kowarz -lotz -lutz -knoll -kiesinger -steiner -panini -timbre -bevacqua -stadel -busiek -postkarte -postcard -meisel -topps -wrestling and this is almost the limit allowed by the eBay search box, but the results are still 63,548 and the most of the low range of them is totally irrelevant.
At this point I suggest you to save this search into your eBay preferences, so you can reuse it easily.
Since to find a Kurt vise for under $10 is almost impossible, another trick is to "reverse" the sorting order, choosing "Price: highest first", and resetting the search terms in the same way seen above.
Using kurt -cobain -iwc -diamond -wayne -larisch -glauber -schwitters -vonnegut -warner -teak -blum -busch -neumann -signed -russell -freundlingen -freundlinger -lesker -panzenberger -rosenthal -norstrand -dunkelmann -certina -kinetic -opitz -adler -bartenbach -placenta -topps -weinrecht -geiger -pulse the results are 61,393, the lower price of the 600th item (third page, 200 items per page, easy to browse) is $245, and there are many vises in the results (and also some good art!).

Another trick, when you are searching for things with a name more complicate than Kurt, is to look for typos, mistakes, etc.: I got a pretty good old East-German lens for a nice price because the title of the auction reported the name wrong!
So, if you are looking for a Gerardi vise, don't forget to look also for Gherardi, Gerardo, Girardi, etc.

Have a good hunting!

 

[melsdad]

This sounds very helpful!! I'll have to try this!

Thanks

 

[Senna]

Excellent post Marco.

I'll add the + modifier to your search. As in Kurt +vise and then all your - exclusions. Run that search and then change the +vise to +vice.
I'm rarely searching for a new Kurt vise so I eliminate the New category but include all of the other condition categories such as New -Other, Mfg Refurbished, Seller Refurbished, and so on. Be sure to include For parts or not working because that is the category used be some folks if they are clueless about what they have or are unable to test it.
I also limit my search to North America which eliminates a bunch of Chinese products and unfortunately also the European products. There may be deals on stuff I want in Europe but shipping often puts these into the not so great a deal category so I accept that limitation to eliminate the Chinese or Indian results.
Miscategorized items often yield the best buys but to find them you have to cast a pretty wide net.

Chuckorlando posted his search technique in the Dividing head thread. I've used the same technique for a long time.
Basically you search Auctions ending soonest then switch to BIN and newly listed to find and buy newly listed BIN objects before they get seen by too many people.
If you can find an auction which ends at 3:00AM you have a far better chance of snagging a great deal because normal people aren't on eBay at 3:00AM!
Abnormal people often get the best deals!

I also search in the entire Business and Industrial section.